Touch force deflection sensor
AssigneeApple Inc.
InventorsPeter W. Richards, Sinan Filiz
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A touch sensitive input system for an electronic device includes a deflection sensor configured to generate a deflection signal based on deflection of a control or sensing surface, and a processor in signal communication with the deflection sensor. The processor is operable to generate a deflection or displacement map characterizing displacement of the surface based on the deflection signal, and a force map characterizing force on the surface based on a transformation of the displacement map. The transformation may be based on a generalized inverse of a compliance operator, where the compliance operator relates the displacement map to the force map. The compliance operator is not necessarily square, and does not necessarily have a traditional inverse.
Claims17
A touch sensitive input system for an electronic device, the system comprising:
- a deflection sensor disposed with respect to a sensing surface of the electronic device, the deflection sensor configured to generate a deflection signal based on deflection of the sensing surface;
- and
- a processor in signal communication with the deflection sensor, the processor operable to generate a displacement map characterizing a non-binary measurement of deflection of the sensing surface based on the deflection signal, the processor further configured to generate a force map characterizing force on the sensing surface based on a transformation of the displacement map;
- wherein
- the transformation of the displacement map comprises a generalized inverse of a compliance operator relating the displacement map to the force map;
- and
- the compliance operator comprises rows corresponding to entries in the displacement map and columns corresponding to entries in the force map.
A method of operating an electronic device, the method comprising:
- sensing a deflection of a control surface of the electronic device in response to a touch pattern on the control surface;
- generating a displacement map of the control surface, based on a non-binary measurement of the deflection;
- defining a transformation relating the displacement map to force imposed on the control surface by the touch pattern;
- and
- generating a force moment map by operation of the transformation on the displacement map;
- wherein
- the force moment map describes the force imposed on the control surface by the touch pattern;
- and
- the transformation is based on a compliance operator relating the displacement map to force imposed on the control surface, the compliance operator comprising rows corresponding to entries in the displacement map and columns corresponding to entries in the force moment map.
A non-volatile computer readable storage medium having program code embedded thereon, the program code executable by a processor of an electronic device to perform a method comprising:
- sensing a deflection of a surface of the electronic device in response to a touch pattern thereon;
- generating a displacement map of the surface, based on a non-binary measurement corresponding to the deflection;
- transforming the displacement map into a force moment map via a transformation operator, the transformation operator based on a generalized inverse of a compliance operator relating the displacement map to force imposed on the surface by the touch pattern, the transformation operator comprising rows corresponding to entries in the displacement map and columns corresponding to entries in the force moment map;
- determining the force imposed on the surface based on the force moment map;
- and
- controlling operation of the electronic device, based on the force.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.